A review of product safety regulations in the European Union

Product safety has been a concern in Europe ever since the early 1960s. Despite the long and relatively stable historical lineage of product safety regulations, new technologies, changes in the world economy, and other major transformations have in recent years brought product safety again to the forefront of policy debates. As reforms are also underway, there is a motivation to review the complex safety policy framework in the European Union (EU). Thus, building on deliberative policy analysis and interpretative literature review, this paper reviews the safety policy for non-food consumer products in the EU. The review covers the historical background and the main legislations, administration and enforcement of the policy, standardization and harmonization, legislations enacted for specific products, notifications delivered by national safety authorities to the EU’s alert system, recalls of dangerous consumer products, and the liability of these. Based on the review and analysis of these themes and the associated literature, the current policy challenges are further discussed.

[1]  H. Wagenaar,et al.  Revisiting deliberative policy analysis , 2019, Policy Studies.

[2]  James Grimmelmann,et al.  Privacy as Product Safety , 2010 .

[3]  C. Ullrich.  New Approach meets new economy: Enforcing EU product safety in e-commerce , 2018, Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law.

[4]  Jukka Ruohonen,et al.  The GDPR Enforcement Fines at Glance , 2020, ArXiv.

[5]  Ville Leppänen,et al.  An outlook on the institutional evolution of the European Union cyber security apparatus , 2016, Gov. Inf. Q..

[6]  K. Herzmann.  Fundamental rights protection against market-related information activity: the case of multilevel product warnings , 2015 .

[7]  I. Benöhr.  The United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection: Legal Implications and New Frontiers , 2020, Journal of Consumer Policy.

[8]  C. Hodges.  Do we need a European Medical Devices Agency , 2004 .

[9]  Ryen W. White,et al.  Introduction , 2006, Commun. ACM.

[10]  E. Benn,et al.  Skin lightening products' violations in Europe: An analysis of the rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products 2005-2018. , 2019, Regulatory toxicology and pharmacology : RTP.

[11]  R Duarte-Davidson,et al.  Recent advances to address European Union Health Security from cross border chemical health threats. , 2014, Environment international.

[12]  Sebastian K. Boell,et al.  On being ‘systematic’ in literature reviews in IS , 2015, J. Inf. Technol..

[13]  Roksana Moore.  Standardisation: A tool for addressing market failure within the software industry , 2013, Comput. Law Secur. Rev..

[14]  Fergal McCaffery,et al.  Approach to the development of a Unified Framework for Safety Critical Software Development , 2017, Comput. Stand. Interfaces.

[15]  C. Kohler.  The EU Cybersecurity Act and European standards: an introduction to the role of European standardization , 2020, International Cybersecurity Law Review.

[16]  S. Jore.  The Conceptual and Scientific Demarcation of Security in Contrast to Safety , 2019 .

[17]  D. van Aken.  Assessing risks – challenges posed by the European general product safety directive , 2002, Injury control and safety promotion.

[18]  M. Faure.  Product Liability and Product Safety in Europe: Harmonization or Differentitation , 2000 .

[19]  Ayşe Buḡra,et al.  Room for Compulsory Product Liability Insurance in the European Union for Smart Robots? Reflections on the Compelling Challenges , 2019, AIDA Europe Research Series on Insurance Law and Regulation.

[20]  T. Dye,et al.  Policy Analysis: What Governments Do, Why They Do It and What Difference It Makes , 1976 .

[21]  Herbert Zech.  Liability for AI: public policy considerations , 2021, ERA Forum.

[22]  Tanushree Mitra,et al.  Auditing E-Commerce Platforms for Algorithmically Curated Vaccine Misinformation , 2021, CHI.

[23]  Daniel J. Ryan.  Two Views on Security Software Liability: Let the Legal System Decide , 2003, IEEE Secur. Priv..

[24]  Marvin Rausand,et al.  Product safety - principles and practices in a life cycle perspective. , 2009 .

[25]  G. Howells.  Protecting Consumer Protection Values in the Fourth Industrial Revolution , 2020 .

[26]  Mervyn Playle.  CE Marking - the Essential Requirements , 2011, SSS.

[27]  A. Marucheck,et al.  Product safety and security in the global supply chain: Issues, challenges and research opportunities , 2011 .

[28]  Ursula Klaschka,et al.  Trust, but verify! Personal care products in the rapid alert system database RAPEX , 2017 .

[29]  M. Austgulen.  Understanding National Preferences in EU Consumer Policy: A Regime Approach , 2020, Journal of Consumer Policy.

[30]  V Rogiers,et al.  Human health safety evaluation of cosmetics in the EU: a legally imposed challenge to science. , 2010, Toxicology and applied pharmacology.

[31]  Liad Wagman,et al.  Big Data at the Crossroads of Antitrust and Consumer Protection , 2019 .

[32]  Knut Blind,et al.  Trends in ICT standards: The relationship between European standardisation bodies and standards consortia , 2008 .

[33]  A. Cavaliere.  Product Liability in the European Union: Compensation and Deterrence Issues , 2004 .

[34]  José Luis Muñoz Sanz,et al.  Measurement of machinery safety level: European framework for product control: Particular case: Spanish framework for market surveillance , 2009 .

[35]  R Orford,et al.  EU alerting and reporting systems for potential chemical public health threats and hazards. , 2014, Environment international.

[36]  Sean McGregor,et al.  Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database , 2020, AAAI.

[37]  Emily M. Weitzenboeck.  Looking back to see ahead: the changing face of users in European e-commerce law , 2015, Artificial Intelligence and Law.

[39]  C. Twigg-Flesner,et al.  Expanding the Boundaries of Liability for Quality Defects , 2002 .

[40]  José Javier Alba Sánchez,et al.  Sharing Knowledge in Consumer Protection: a Database on Experts in Evaluation and Testing of Consumer Products and their Risks of Use. , 1999 .

[41]  A. J. Meltsner.  The Seven Deadly Sins of Policy Analysis , 1986 .